but in the surrounding villages, where ever a door is opened for you: but while you are thus engaged, let it not be from motives of policy, merely to increase your auditory; but from love to Christ and the souls of your fellow-sinners. It is this only that will endure reflection in a dying hour. The apostle Paul was charged by some of the Corinthian teachers with being crafty, and with having caught the Corinthians with guile; but he could say in reply to all such insinuations, in behalf of himself and his fellow-labourers, Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wis. dom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world.*

Value it in the general tenor of your behaviour. Cultivate a meek, modest, peaceful, and friendly temper. Be generous and humane. Prove by your spirit and conduct that you are a lover of all mankind. To men in general, but especially to the poor and afflicted, be pitiful, be courteous. It is this, my brother, that will recommend the gospel you proclaim. Without this, could you preach with the eloquence of an angel, you may expect that no good end will be answered.

Prize the character of a good man, above worldly greatness.-It is not sinful for a minister to possess property any more than another man; but to aspire after it is unworthy of his sacred character. Greatness, unaccompanied with goodness, is valu. ed as nothing by the great God. Kings and emperors, where that is wanting, are nothing but great beasts, horned beasts, pushing one at another.† When Sennacherib vaunted against the church of God, that he would enter the forest of

*2 Cor. xii. 16, compared with chap. i. 12. See Dr. Owen on Heb. iii. 1. vol. ii. p. 6.

† Dan. viii.

her Carmel, and cut down her tall cedars, the daughter of Zion is commanded to despise nim. God speaks of him as we should speak of a buffalo,` or even of an ass, I will put my hook into thy nose, and my bridle into thy lips, and will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.* Outward greatness, when accompanied with goodness, may be a great blessing; yet even then, it is the latter, and not the former, that denominates the true worth of a character. Once more.

Value it above mental greatness, or greatness in gifts and parts.It is not wrong to cultivate gifts; on the contrary, it is our duty so to do.

But de

sirable as these are, they are not to be compared with goodness. Covet earnestly the best gifts, says the apostle, AND YET SHEW I UNTO YOU A MORE EXCELLENT WAY-viz. charity, or love. If we improve in gifts and not in grace, to say the least, it will be useless, and perhaps dangerous, both to ourselves and others. To improve in gifts, that we may be the better able to discharge our work, is laudable; but if it be for the sake of popular applause, let us expect a blast. Hundreds of ministers have been ruined by indulging a thirst for the character of the great man, while they have neglected the far superior character of the good man. Another part of the character of Barnabas was, that he was,

II. FULL OF THE HOLY GHOST.-The Holy Ghost somtimes denotes his extraordinary gifts, as in Acts xix.where the apostle Paul put the question to some of the believers in Christ, whether they had received the Holy Ghost; but here it signifies his indwelling and ordinary operations, or what is elsewhere called an unction from the Holy One. This, though more common than the other, is far more excellent. Its fruits, though less brilliant, are abundantly the most valuable. To be a

* Isaiah xxxvii. 29.

† 1 John, ii 20.

state.

ble to surmount a difficulty by Christian patience, is a greater thing in the sight of God than to remove a mountain. Every work of God bears some mark of Godhead, even a thistle or a nettle ; but there are some works of God which bear a peculiar likeness to his holy moral character; such were the minds of men and angels in their original This will serve to illustrate the subject in hand. The extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit, are a communication of his power; but in his dwelling in the saints, and the ordinary operations of his grace, he communicates his own holy nature; & this it was of which Barnabas was full. To be full of the Holy Ghost, is to be full of the dove, as I may say; or full of those fruits of the Spirit mentioned by the apostle to the Gallatians, viz. love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness.

measure.

A

To be sure, the term full is not here to be understood in an unlimited sense; not in so ample a sense as when it is applied to Christ. He was filled with the Spirit without measure, but we in The word is doubtless to be understood in a comparative sense, and denotes as much as that he was habitually under his holy influence. person that is greatly under the influence of the love of this world, is said to be drunken with its cares or pleasures. In allusion to something like this, the apostle exhorts that we be not drunken with wine, wherein is excess but FILLED with the Spirit. The word filled here is very expressive; it denotes, I should think, a being overcome as it were with the holy influences and fruits of the blessed Spirit. How necessary is all this, my brother, in your work; O, how necessary is unction from the Holy One!

an

It is this that will enable you to enter into the spirit of the gospel, and and preserve you from des

* Eph. v. 18.

tructive errors concerning it.-Those who have an unction from the Holy One, are said to know all things; and the anointing which they have received abideth in them, and they need not that any man teach them but, as the same anointing teacheth them all things, and is truth, and is no lie.*-We shall naturally fall in with the dictates of that Spirit of which we are full. It is for want of this, in a great measure, that the scriptures appear strange, and foreign, and difficult to be understood. He that is full of the Holy Ghost, has the contents of the Bible written, as I may say, upon his heart; and thus its sacred pages are easy to be understood, as wisdom is casy to him that understandeth.

Is it no breach of charity to say, that if the professors of Christianity had more of the Holy Spirit of God in their hearts, there would be a greater harmony amongst them respecting the great truths which he has revealed. The rejection of such doctrines as the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the total depravity of mankind, the proper Deity and atonement of Christ, justification by faith in his name, the freeness and sovereignty of grace, and the agency of the Holy Spirit, may easily be accounted for upon this principle. If we are destitute of the Holy Spirit, we are blind to the loveliness of the divine character, and destitute of any true love to God in our hearts; and if destitute of this, we shall not be able to see the reasonableness of that law, which requires love to him with all the heart; and then, of course, we shall think lightly of the nature of those offences committed against him-we shall be naturally disposed to palliate and excuse our want of love to him, yea, and even our positive violations of his law; it will seem hard, very hard indeed, for such little things as these to be punished with everlasting destruction. And now, all this admitted, we shall naturally be

* 1 John ii. 20, 27.

blind to the necessity and glory of salvation by Jesus Christ. If sin is so trifling an affair, it will seem a strange and incredible thing that God should become incarnate to atone for it. And hence we shall be very easily persuaded to consider Christ as only a good man, who came into the world to set us a good example; or, however, that he is not equal with the Father. The freeness and sovereignty of grace also, together with justification by imputed righteousness, will be a very strange sound in our ears. Like the Jews, we shall go about to establish our own righteousness, and shall not submit to the righteousness of God. I will seem equally strange and incredible to be told, that we are by nature utterly unfit for the kingdom of God -that therefore, we must be born again-that we are so bad, that we cannot even come to Christ for life, except the Father draw us-yea, and that our best doings, after all, are unworthy of God's notice. It will be no wonder, if, instead of these unwelcome and humiliating doctrines, we should fall in with those writers and preachers who think more favourably of our condition, and the condition of the world at large; who either deny eternal punishment to exist, or represent men in general, as being in little or no danger of it. And having avowed these sentiments, it will then become hecessary to compliment their abettors (including ourselves in the number) as persons of a more ra tional and liberal way of thinking than other people.

My dear brother, of all things be this your prayer, Take not thy Holy Spirit from me! If once we sink into such a way of performing our public work, as to do without his enlightening and enlivening influences, we.ny go on, and probably shall go on, from one degree of evil to an other. Knowing how to account for the operations of our own minds, without imputing them to a divine a